Born on September 8, 1923 in the village of Tsada, Khunzakh region of Dagestan. Father - Gamzat Tsadasa (son of Yusupil Magoma) (1877–1951), people's poet of Dagestan, laureate of the USSR State Prize. Mother - Gamzatova Khandulai Gaidarbekgadzhievna (1888–1965). Wife – Gamzatova Patimat Saidovna (1931–2000). Daughters: Gamzatova Zarema Rasulovna (born 1956), Gamzatova Patimat Rasulovna (born 1959), Gamzatova Salihat Rasulovna (born 1965). Granddaughters: Amirkhanova Shakhrizat Khizrievna (born 1978), Amirkhanova Madina Khizrievna (born 1982), Makhacheva Tavus Osmanovna (born 1983), Magomedova Aminat Magomedovna (born 1986).
Rasul Gamzatov’s first teacher and mentor in the art of poetry was his father Gamzat Tsadasa. As a child, Rasul loved to listen to his father's stories about the famous Shamil, who had eight heart wounds and was able to cut a horseman and horse with one blow of a saber; about the brave Naib Hadji Murat, about whom Leo Tolstoy wrote his wonderful story; about the legendary Gidatlin Khochbar; about the handsome Chokh Kamalil Bashir, from whom, like a burning lamp, a shadow did not fall on the ground; about the singer of love Mahmud, whose songs became talismans for all the loving boys and girls of the mountains... These folk legends, fairy tales and songs left their mark on the poet’s heart for the rest of his life, becoming prophetic pages for him great history his little people.
Gamzat Tsadasa read his poems to his son - from an early age Rasul knew them all by heart. Rasul began writing his own poems - about school, about comrades, about teachers - when he was 9 years old.
When Rasul was in the 7th grade, his poem was published in the Avar newspaper “Bolshevik Gor”, which was immediately praised by the famous Avar writer Rajab Dinmagomaev in a few lines. Then his poems began to appear constantly in the Khunzakh regional newspaper, and in the newspaper of the city of Buinaksk, and in the republican “Bolshevik of the Mountains”. He signed them with his father's pseudonym - Tsadas. One day a mountain man, who did not know that Rasul wrote poetry, said to him: “Listen, what happened to your respected father? Previously, after reading his poems just once, I immediately memorized them by heart, but now I can’t even understand them!” Then Rasul decided to make his father’s name his surname and began to sign himself as follows: Rasul Gamzatov.
In 1940, after graduating from Avar pedagogical school in the city of Buynaksk, Rasul Gamzatov returned to home school- but already as a teacher (now she bears the name Gamzat Tsadasa). Then he worked as an assistant director of the Avar State Theater, head of the department and his own correspondent for the Bolshevik Mountains newspaper, and editor of Avar broadcasts of the Dagestan Radio Committee.
The first collection of poems by Rasul Gamzatov, “Ardent Love and Burning Hatred,” was published in the Avar language in 1943. In poems of the war years, Gamzatov sang heroism Soviet people. In the battles of the Great Patriotic War two of his older brothers died...
Gamzatov was only 20 years old when he became a member of the USSR Writers' Union.
Once Rasul Gamzatov read several of his poems, already translated into Russian, to the famous Lak poet Effendi Kapiev, and he advised him to go to study in Moscow.
2 years after this conversation, holding under his arm several of his own books, the poem “Children of Krasnodon”, translated into Russian by Ilya Selvinsky, he went to the capital to enter the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky. The director of the institute, Fyodor Vasilyevich Gladkov, having read his poems, although he saw that Gamzatov did not speak Russian well, and the dictation he wrote was so motley with pencil corrections that it seemed as if sparrows were fighting on it, still wrote his name among those accepted.
Moscow and the Literary Institute revealed hitherto unknown secrets of poetry to Gamzatov. He took turns falling in love with different poets: now in Blok, now in Bagritsky, now in Mayakovsky, now in Yesenin, now in Pasternak, now in Tsvetaeva, in the Avar Mahmud and the German Heine. But the love for Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov remained forever unchanged.
Rasul knew and loved Russian literature as a child. When he was a schoolboy, his father asked him to read Tolstoy’s “Hadji Murad” to the village residents, immediately translating it into the Avar language (the old people then said that a person was not able to create such a truthful book that, probably, the Lord himself created it). Rasul learned Krylov's fables by heart, re-read Chekhov's "Chameleon" several times, Pushkin's "Village" in a marvelous translation by Gamzat Tsadas.
Rasul Gamzatov graduated from the Literary Institute in 1950. According to him in my own words, here in Moscow, he learned to hold a pen in his hand, sit bending over white paper, love and appreciate holy feeling dissatisfaction with oneself. “If I added at least three pebbles to the beautiful Avar poetry,” he believes, “if there is so much fire in my poems that it is enough to light three cigarettes, then I owe all this to Moscow, Russian literature, my friends and teachers."
In 1947, the first book of poems by Rasul Gamzatov was published in Russian. Since then, dozens of his poetic, prose and journalistic books have been published in the Avar and Russian languages, in many languages of Dagestan, the Caucasus and the whole world. Among them: “Our Mountains” (1947), “My Land” (1948), “The Year of My Birth”, “Homeland of the Highlander” (1950), “The Lay of the Elder Brother” (1952), “Dagestan Spring” (1955) , “My Heart is in the Mountains” (1959), “Mountain Woman” (1958), “High Stars” (1962), “Zarema” (1963), “Letters” (1963), “And Star Speaks to Star” (1964) , “Mulatto” (1966), “The Third Hour”, “Take Care of Friends”, “Cranes”, “Blade and Rose”, “Border”, “Book of Love”, “At the Hearth”, “The Last Price”, “Legends” "", "Rosary of Years", "Island of Women", "Wheel of Life", "About the Stormy Days of the Caucasus", "Afternoon Heat", "Persian Poems", "Mystery", "My Dagestan" (1968), "Two Shawls" , “Judge me by the code of love”, “Sonnets”, “The Highlander’s Constitution” and many others.
For the collection of poems and poems “The Year of My Birth”, Rasul Gamzatov was awarded the USSR State Prize (1952), the collection “High Stars” (1962) was awarded the Lenin Prize (1963).
The work of Rasul Gamzatov is single book, a book of wisdom and courage, a book of love and pain, a book of prayers and curses, a book of truth and faith, a book of nobility and goodness, a book of moments and eternity. The poet has always been a great humanist. His work is filled with love for life, people, land, and peace; he was a merciless fighter against the evil, low, and insignificant on earth. The breadth of the creative horizon, the ascent to harmony, new creative discoveries, balancing between the mysterious and the known, the heavenly and the earthly - these are the main features of his talent.
The work of Rasul Gamzatov colorfully adorned the courageous image of Dagestan with an aura of high spirituality and cultural identity. At the same time, it significantly expanded the genre palette national literature. With Gamzatov, the literature of Dagestan passed huge way and took its rightful place in world culture.
Freshness of perception of life, ability to draw people and nature cordially and expressively native land distinguish Gamzatov's poetry. “Poetry without a native land, without native soil is a bird without a nest,” said Rasul Gamzatov.
He always wrote naturally and humanely, ardently and passionately, originally and inspiredly, life-affirmingly and multifacetedly, boldly and accusatoryly, boldly and angrily. The poet Robert Rozhdestvensky said this about Rasul Gamzatov: “He is a huge poet, who made Dagestan, the Avar language, and his mountains famous. His heart is wise, generous, alive. I saw him in many speeches, where he remained a citizen, a sage, a joker. He fought his enemies without pity and beat them with wisdom. He is not only a Dagestan poet, but also a Russian poet. He is always named among our favorite poets.” Therefore, millions of people feel like citizens of the amazing and unique world of poetry and prose of Rasul Gamzatov.
Rasul Gamzatov’s book “The Constitution of a Highlander” is composed of poetry, prose and journalism. It reflects all the milestones of his work. Along with poetic works Rasul Gamzatov included in this book his unique lyrical story “My Dagestan”, where he “calls for advice the wisdom of nature and centuries, the experience of brothers and the genius of all times, the lessons of the harsh roads of life traveled.” Gamzatov's story has become a phenomenon throughout world literature and has been translated into many languages of the world.
The poems and poems of Rasul Gamzatov were translated into Russian by such masters of the pen as Ilya Selvinsky and Sergei Gorodetsky, Semyon Lipkin and Yulia Neiman. His poet friends worked especially fruitfully with him: Naum Grebnev, Yakov Kozlovsky, Yakov Helemsky, Vladimir Soloukhin, Elena Nikolaevskaya, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrei Voznesensky, Yunna Moritz. And Rasul Gamzatovich himself translated into Avar the poems and poems of Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Shevchenko, Blok, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, poems by poets of the Pushkin galaxy, the Arab poet Abdul Aziz Khoja and others.
A.S. For Rasul Gamzatov, Pushkin was “Peter the First of Russian poetry - a brave and powerful transformer.” He brilliantly, with his characteristic flavor, translated many of Pushkin’s poems and poems into the Avar language, which entered the consciousness Avar people as a national phenomenon. “Gypsies”, “Caucasian poem”, “Poltava”, “ Bronze Horseman", translated by Rasul Gamzatov, became masterpieces of mountain poetry and enriched the spiritual treasury of the Avar people, adding to the name of Pushkin even more love and respect of many generations of readers who have been reading and rereading the works of A.S. for half a century. Pushkin in the Avar language.
On the initiative of Rasul Gamzatov and with his active participation, the works of A.S. Pushkin were translated into many Dagestan languages. Every year on June 6, Pushkin’s birthday, the Republic of Dagestan hosts Pushkin Poetry Day at his monument in Makhachkala, as well as in other cities and regions of the republic, where the poems of the great Russian poet are heard in all the languages of the peoples of Dagestan.
Many of Rasul Gamzatov’s poems became songs. The Melodiya company has repeatedly released records and CDs with songs based on the poet’s poems. Such famous composers as D. Kabalevsky, A. Ekimyan, M. Blanter, J. Frenkel, E. Kolmanovsky, P. Aedonitsky, P. Bul-Bul-ogly, R. Pauls, A. Pakhmutova, Yu Antonov, G. Gasanov, S. Agababov, M. Kazhlaev, Sh. Chalaev, N. Dagirov, M. Kasumov, A. Tsurmilov and many others.
Every literary work has its own history. Rasul Gamzatov’s poem “Cranes,” which later became a song - a requiem for all those who died in wars, is also no exception in this regard. While in Japan, Rasul Gamzatov saw famous monument white cranes in Hiroshima. He was also told a story about a girl who became a victim of the consequences of a nuclear bomb and never managed to cut out a thousand cranes from paper. The poet was shocked by this death. Here in Japan, he received a telegram informing him of the death of his mother. Gamzatov flew to Moscow and on the plane, thinking about his mother, he remembered his deceased father and his brothers who died in the war. And that Hiroshima girl with paper cranes never left my memory. That’s how the poem was born, which began with these lines:
Sometimes it seems to me that horsemen
Those who did not come from the bloody fields,
They were not buried in mass graves,
And they turned into white cranes...
Mark Bernes saw the poem in the New World magazine. Having revised it with the help of the author and translator Naum Grebnev, Bernes read it to Jan Frenkel and asked him to write music... And so the song appeared. She lived her full life and gained worldwide popularity. Yan Frenkel and Rasul Gamzatov became close friends for life, and many times after that Frenkel traveled to Dagestan, visited Makhachkala and mountain villages, and each time he was greeted there as a kind and welcome guest.
The songs written to the poems of Rasul Gamzatov were performed by famous singers and artists: Anna German, Galina Vishnevskaya, Muslim Magomaev, Joseph Kobzon, Valery Leontiev, Sergei Zakharov, Sofia Rotaru, Rashid Beibutov, Vakhtang Kikabidze, Dmitry Gnatyuk, Mui Gasanova, Magomedtamir Sindikov , Magomed Omarov, Shagav Abdurakhmanov and others. Songs based on poems by Rasul Gamzatov were included in the repertoire of the Charodinsky choir, the ensemble "Gaya", the Tagir Kurachev quartet and other performers. His poems were read from the stage by Mikhail Ulyanov, Alexander Zavadsky, Yakov Smolensky, Alexander Lazarev.
Poetry evenings by Rasul Gamzatov were successfully held in different years in theaters and concert halls Moscow and Makhachkala, in cultural centers Sofia, Warsaw, Berlin, Budapest and other cities of the world.
Based on the works of the poet, the ballet “Mountain Woman” was staged at the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater, the play “My Dagestan” was staged at the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Comedy Theater, and on the stage of the Avar Musical drama theater named after G. Tsadasa, the plays “My Heart is in the Mountains”, “Take Care of Mothers”, “Mountain Woman”, etc. were staged. The play “Mountain Woman” was staged on the stages of many theaters former USSR. Based on his works art films"Mountain Woman" and "The Tale of the Brave Khochbar".
For outstanding achievements in the field of literature, Rasul Gamzatov was awarded many honorary titles and prizes. People's poet of Dagestan R.G. Gamzatov - Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin Prize, laureate of the State Prizes of the USSR and the RSFSR, laureate of the international prize "Best Poet of the 20th Century", the Prize of Asian and African Writers "Lotus", the Jawaharlal Nehru, Firdousi, Hristo Botev Prizes, as well as the M Prize Sholokhov, M. Lermontov, A. Fadeev, Batyray, Makhmud, S. Stalsky, G. Tsadasy and others, full member of the Petrine Academy of Sciences and Arts of Russia. Since 1950, he was the chairman of the board of the Writers' Union of Dagestan.
Rasul Gamzatovich was awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order October revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, Orders of Friendship of Peoples, "For Services to the Fatherland", Peter the Great, the Bulgarian Order of Cyril and Methodius, the Georgian Order of the Golden Fleece, many medals.
Rasul Gamzatov was repeatedly elected as a deputy Supreme Council Dagestan ASSR, Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of the DASSR, deputy and member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. For several decades he was a delegate to the writers' congresses of Dagestan, the RSFSR and the USSR, a member of the Bureau of Solidarity of Writers of Asian and African Countries, a member of the Committee for the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, a member of the board of the Soviet Peace Committee, deputy chairman of the Soviet Committee for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia and Africa, a member of the editorial board magazines “New World”, “Friendship of Peoples”, newspapers “ Literary newspaper», « Literary Russia" and etc.
Books by famous literary scholars have been written and published about the life and work of the poet: K. Sultanov, V. Ognev, V. Dementiev. Documentary and television films have been made about him, such as “My Heart is in the Mountains”, “A Caucasian from Tsad”, “White Cranes”, “Rasul Gamzatov and Georgia”.
The poetry of Rasul Gamzatov, who passed away in 2003, makes up a magnificent cultural era. The poet’s powerful creative energy inherent in his poems, the bright lyricism and deep wisdom of his poetry captivate and enchant everyone who touches it.
In September 1923, in the distant Dagestan village of Tsada, one of the most beloved multinational Soviet people poet Rasul Gamzatov, whose poems everyone knew by heart - from young to old, since songs based on his texts very quickly became popular. His "Lullaby", "Cranes", " Yellow leaves", "Take care of your friends", "Flowers have eyes", "Dolalay", "Just like that", "At that window", "Earthball" and many other excellent songs were performed at every home festive table, and from the big stage by great masters, and on dance floors in the most remote cities and villages from cultural centers. Extraordinary penetration of feelings, very simple rhetoric, absence of contrived “beauties”, full of truth beauty - these are the qualities of poetry that are respected by the people. And just like that excellent characteristics Rasul Gamzatov brought into his work.
Family
His first poetry teacher and mentor was his father, laureate of the USSR State Prize, People's Poet of Dagestan Gamzat Tsadasa. In addition to his father’s poems, Rasul knew by heart all his stories about the hero Shamil, who was unsurpassed in wielding a sword, received eight wounds in the heart area and still cut through the enemy along with his horse with one blow. Young Rasul Gamzatov himself read just as willingly, and especially loved Tolstoy’s story about how Naib Hadji Murad fought for happiness native people with superior forces of Cossacks and Russian troops.
He was inspired and set in a poetic mood by ancient songs about the legendary Khochbar, about a man so dazzlingly handsome that even a shadow did not fall from him - the most illustrious Kamalil Bashir, about Mahmud, the fabulous singer of love, after whom all the young boys and girls in love in the mountains repeated their cherished words . All the songs, fairy tales, and legends he heard lay firmly on the heart of the future poet and grew into them for the rest of his life. It was very big story a very small people, whose son was Rasul Gamzatov.
The path to poetry
The first poems were written while still at school; they told about teachers, comrades, and their native school. The nine-year-old boy was embarrassed to show anyone his first lines. But when Rasul Gamzatov matured a little, he gave one poem to the Avar newspaper "Bolshevik of the Mountains". He was then in seventh grade. The poem caught the eye of the writer Rajab Dinmagomaev, and he spoke of it with great praise. Rasul Gamzatov wrote poetry constantly, but began publishing them much later - in Buinaks newspapers. The young man was cunning - he signed with his father's pseudonym.
But one day he was ashamed by an unfamiliar mountaineer who asked if his respected father was ill. Previously, they say, his poems were remembered from the first reading, but now even after the tenth time the meaning remains vague. Rasul Gamzatov, whose biography was just beginning, decided to take a pseudonym, but couldn’t think of anything else how to make a surname from his father’s name. With her he entered poetry. The new singer of the mountains, poet Rasul Gamzatov, did not even think about world fame. He humbly graduated from the pedagogical school and returned in 1940 to teach at his native school.
War
At the beginning of the war, few people knew the poems of Rasul Gamzatov. His best works have not yet been written. He worked as a correspondent, then headed a department in the Bolshevik Gor newspaper, and edited Avar broadcasts in the Dagestan Radio Committee. Nevertheless, in 1943 he managed to publish his first collection of poems in the Avar language. It was called "Ardent Love and Burning Hate." His older brothers, his acquaintances, his friends and compatriots died in the war. This is exactly what the poems in the first collection were written about. But this was not a cry for the dead, it was a song about heroes. The book quickly became famous among compatriots and colleagues.
At the same time, Rasul Gamzatov, whose biography has now become associated with literature for the rest of his life, was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR. His poems began to be translated into Russian, and when I read the translations famous poet Effendi Kapiev immediately advised Rasul to continue his studies. And definitely in Moscow, in the name of Gorky. By this time, Ilya Selvinsky had done a brilliant translation of Rasul Gamzatov’s poem “Children of Krasnodon”, and with this baggage the poet from Dagestan came to the capital, even speaking Russian with great difficulty. Fyodor Gladkov, at that time the director of the Literary Institute, nevertheless took a risk and added the mountaineer to the number of students.
Literary Institute
Every student is waiting there Magic world, the unknown secrets of the poetic word are revealed, the teachers bear a comprehensive love for a variety of authors - from the unsurpassed Blok to the jeweler Bagritsky, from the block of Mayakovsky to the touching paintings of Yesenin, from the subtlest Pasternak to the passionate soul of Tsvetaeva, from the magnificent Avar Mahmud to the great German Heine. And all these indescribable beauties are unshakably built into the foundation that Pushkin and Lermontov, Nekrasov and Fet created in unbreakable lines. Rasul Gamzatov, whose best poems were also inscribed in golden letters in the vast book of Russian literature, only at the Literary Institute learned real and correct dissatisfaction with himself and his writings. He worked tirelessly.
He not only wrote what he felt, what he observed, what inspired him. The debt to the relatives of Rasul Gamzatov’s poem was not fully repaid. He knew how much the Avars lacked knowledge of Russian literature, because, while still a schoolboy, he read Hadji Murad to his fellow villagers, translating from sight. Everyone, both old and young, listened with bated breath. After finishing the reading, the elders said that a person could not write such a truthful book. Surely the Lord wrote it. Therefore, Rasul Gamzatov, whose friends helped him in every possible way, translated into Avar Krylov’s fables, poems and poems by Lermontov, Pushkin, Shevchenko, Nekrasov, Blok, Yesenin, Mayakovsky, the entire Pushkin poetic galaxy, as well as poems by the Arab poet Abdul Aziz Khoja. Here he clearly followed in his father’s footsteps: Gamzat Tsadas also translated Pushkin and Chekhov into Avar.
Translators
The Literary Institute gave him everything to feel completely “at home” in this profession - these are the words of Rasul Gamzatov. It is here, he said, that one learns to hold a pen in one’s hand, to bend over blank paper, to love and appreciate the state of dissatisfaction with what is written. “If I succeeded,” Gamzatov wrote, “to beautiful poetry add at least three pebbles, if my poems have enough fire to light three cigarettes - and I also owe this only to Moscow, the teachers of the Literary Institute and my friends." Rasul Gamzatov got along with people easily and firmly. His translators long years there were such diverse masters of words as Sergei Gorodetsky and Ilya Selvinsky, Yulia Neiman and Semyon Lipkin, especially many poems and poems were translated by Yakov Kozlovsky, Naum Grebnev (Rambakh), Vladimir Soloukhin, Yakov Helemsky, Elena Nikolaevskaya, Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Marina Akhmetova, Yunna Moritz.
Translations into Russian made Gamzatov’s poetry known not only to other peoples of Dagestan, but also to the entire vast Soviet country. Moreover, Rasul Gamzatov was loved as much as Rasul Gamzatov himself loved the world. Poems about love captivated us with their penetration, high and chaste sensuality; they simply breathed unprecedented sincerity. The author of this article literally cried with gratitude when she heard a poem on the radio that said that if in any corner of the earth any woman feels that no one loves her, it means that somewhere far away in the mountains she has died poet Rasul Gamzatov. How it was said! It should be noted: the author of the article was extremely young at that moment and did not suffer one bit from the lack of love from those around her. But I highly appreciated both this simplicity and this height of attitude towards people. To tears. It is no wonder that friends treated Gamzatov’s poems with such attention, and the best poets of our time translated him.
Books
In 1947, the first book of poems in Russian appeared, and then Rasul Gamzatov was published in many languages of the world. He wrote not only poetic, but also journalistic and prose books. His poems and poems in the book “The Year of My Birth” were awarded the USSR State Prize in 1950. This whole book is full of folklore, lyrical and lullabies alternate with poems of high civic content. The poet was twenty-seven, and he was not called the best Dagestan poet only because his father, a teacher, who saw the unprecedented fame that his student and son brought him, was alive. In all his more than forty books, Rasul really wrote about Love, the very one, from the very capital letters, since she belonged not only to a woman, but to all of humanity, the entire Earth, a huge Fatherland and a small time. Truly this love was all-encompassing.
Here “The Bells of Hiroshima”, appealing to the conscience of all people, and “My Dagestan” - like a lyrical and philosophical encyclopedia of small nationalities - everywhere the reader feels this amazing sincerity, confession, trust, which permeate every line. Truly, as long as such poets are born in the distant mountains of Dagestan, the path to goodness, beauty, justice and peace is not closed to this country. All the people, history, and nature of Dagestan in poetry appear close to any reader. Until the very last word Gamzatov’s poetry has not lost the freshness of his perception of life, his ability to expressively and cordially paint both a picture of nature and a sensual impulse. Naturalness, humanity, originality, but at the same time it is always a hot and passionate speech, sometimes daring, rarely accusatory, angry, but always bold, always filled with love. This is exactly what Robert Rozhdestvensky often talked about when it came to Rasul Gamzatov: “Everyone always calls him one of their favorite poets!”
"I was sometimes a politician..."
And he was born a poet! This is how Gamzatov complained about himself at the end of his life. All his friends say that these are unnecessary self-accusations. It is impossible to find wiser behavior for everyone who lived in these for a long time peace and quiet and quick, dramatic changes. The subordination was, of course, the strictest, and famous poem, which Rasul Gamzatov seemed to make his own credo - “Take care of your friends”, was not always remembered in time by everyone. The Dagestan poet always managed to remain himself; he was not afraid to say what others could not afford.
He could even quarrel. But he would immediately make peace, which is why he almost always had friendly feasts. Gamzatov attached importance to communication with people special meaning, he could not live even a day without friends. Nevertheless, he managed to work a lot and was able to concentrate instantly in the most incredible conditions. He did not turn out to be an orthodox communist, since he was rather ironic about all kinds of congresses and meetings without a feast. He understood the pathos characteristic of other poets, sighed, and sometimes teased, gently and without offense, in the way that only Rasul Gamzatov could. "Take care of your friends!" - it was read in his every step. Ian Frenkel (translator Naum Grebnev) made an excellent song based on these verses.
Confession
Rasul Gamzatov was a large-scale man. This manifested itself in everything: in love, in friendship, in poetry. He always felt responsibility for his texts very keenly. Observant and insightful in a Caucasian way, he always correctly “read” people’s reactions to his poems, and was never shy about asking for advice. This is a poet for whom literally everything that exists is poetic material, there are no trifles anywhere - not in personal life, nor in creativity. Just as he extremely sincerely empathizes with any person, even a little acquaintance, or even a complete stranger, his worries for the entire planet are no less sincere and understandable to the reader. He assessed his own creativity soberly, had many and often doubts, was modest, prepared for performances with excitement and treated them responsibly. His house was open to literally everyone. Even in the work office, any person could be present at any time without interfering with work, since the hospitality of the mountaineers knows no bounds.
People treated him the same way. His poetry amazingly always coincided with the times. Crowds attended his creative meetings. like football. Even the huge stadiums were full, and in the Sports Palaces at his evenings there was no place for an apple to fall. Sincere word is always popular, especially if it is real sincerity, not ostentatious, not feigned. The authorities also treated Gamzatov with favor, although there was less reverence. The poet was a brilliant, witty speaker, oddly enough - not verbose, but one whose gesture speaks more than a word. As very rare people, he knew how to listen to others very well, and always absorbed the most important, the most valuable. Among his bosom friends were Tvardovsky and Simonov, Aitmatov and Kuliev, Lukonin and Karim, Rozhdestvensky and Yevtushenko, absolutely not similar friend people are at odds with each other and are often antagonists. Only Rasul Gamzatov knew how to unite everyone.
"Cranes"
The poet was also popular abroad, and therefore traveled a lot around the world. While in Japan, I learned the story about the cranes of the girl Sasaki Sadako, who did not have time to fold a thousand cranes, and saw a monument to these white birds in Hiroshima. The death of the poet’s girl shocked him to tears. And literally right there he received a telegram that his mother had died. Rasul Gamzatov immediately flew home. Poems about my mother, about my deceased father, about my older brothers who died in the war, and about this girl from Hiroshima were written right on the plane. “A tired wedge flies, flies across the sky...” This song immediately gained worldwide popularity, and everything suggests that it will live for many centuries. The music was also written by Jan Frenkel, who became one of the poet's best friends. Even Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev cried right at the concert, in front of a full hall, when he first heard this song.
A lot of songs have been written based on the poems of Rasul Gamzatov. They were sung by such wonderful singers as Dmitry Hvorostovsky, Mark Bernes, Joseph Kobzon, Alexander Gradsky, Anna German, Galina Vishnevskaya, Muslim Magomaev, Valery Leontiev, Sergei Zakharov, Sofia Rotatu, Rashid Beibutov, Dmitry Gnatyuk and many others. The composers who worked with him were also stellar: Alexandra Pakhmutova, Yuri Antonov, Raymond Pauls, Dmitry Kabalevsky - these are just the most famous. Long before the terrible events at the Beslan school, a poem was born that turned out to be prophetic. Rasul Gamzatov warned his compatriots: “Take care of the children!”, but no, they didn’t... His books were published all over the world in millions of copies. The poet lived for a long time; in Moscow in 2003, the huge cinema and concert hall "Russia" almost burst due to the influx of people wanting to go to his creative evening. And for many more decades, and most likely, always, young children will read poems written by Rasul Gamzatov at matinees. "Mother". "Out of thousands of words... this one has a special destiny..."
Ratings
Cultural figures spoke about the poet like no other - almost always flatteringly, enthusiastically and with reverence. Samuil Marshak, who in principle relies on neutrality in all manifestations of life, wrote an enthusiastic preface to Gamzatov’s two-volume work; they wrote and spoke a lot and often from high stands Nice words addressed to him by such people as Chukovsky, Tvordovsky, Yusupov, Yevtushenko, Aftmatov, Sergei Mikhalkov, Rozhdestvensky, Astafiev, Isakovsky, Irakli Andronnikov and many, many others. There are a lot of memories left about the witty and unconventional performances of Rasul Gamzatov, as well as his wonderful and truly excellent human qualities. Even the post-perestroika period did not break the poetic worldview.
In the late 80s, when an anti-alcohol campaign was going on across the country, and it was forbidden to sell or bring alcohol to the writers’ congress, the poet sighed: “Well... I’ll have to bring it myself.” The destruction of the worldview failed, but Gamzatov took all the illnesses of this time very close to his heart. As, however, everything and always. In the last verses he was merciless to himself. “It’s time to go south, but the broken wings are tired...” Even Dagestan became almost foreign to him and less and less understandable every day. The poet realizes that, like time, he was also different. The last verses are filled with pain. For himself, for the death of his only beloved wife Patimat, for the curvature of his pen, for the fact that farewell to the country he knew turned out to be so irreparable. We had to say goodbye “to the time of charlatans.” In November 2003, the wonderful poet Rasul Gamzatov passed away.
Small but big facts
But even in these unhappy times, the poetry of Rasul Gamzatov is a spiritual talisman, a place of spirituality and humanity, an island of joy and happiness in a sea of anger and hatred. The poet was buried in Makhachkala. There, near the Russian Drama Theater, there is a monument. “And let glory bring him a name” - that’s what it’s called documentary about Rasul Gamzatov. His aphorisms, toasts, and instructions are endless; it is a pity that only a few were preserved in the notes of his friends and acquaintances. In a sick world, being healthy is simply dishonest, Gamzatov believed.
He wrote neither poetry nor prose in Russian. And I was always sure that his fame comes from his friends who translate him very well bad poems. “Poetry is excitement, it is a bird in flight that the poet must catch,” he wrote. And he directly declared to Dzhokhar Dudayev on his own anniversary: “There are no independent nations and people! Why should an Armenian have independence from a Georgian, and an Avar from a Chechen? Dagestan never voluntarily entered Russia, and will never voluntarily leave Russia!” And this was in the 90s, on the eve of the war. Dudayev couldn’t even answer him. So he left.
The article is devoted to a short biography of Rasul Gamzatov, a famous Soviet writer.
short biography Gamzatova: stages of her creative journey
Rasul Gamzatovich Gamzatov was born in 1923 in a small Dagestan village. He listened with greedy attention to folk tales and legends that remained forever in his memory. The boy's first teacher was his father, a recognized Dagestan poet. At the age of nine, Rasul began writing poetry. Soon his poems began to be published in the newspaper republican significance.
After graduating from a pedagogical school, Gamzatov gets a job as a teacher at his native school. Subsequently he worked as an assistant director, radio editor, and newspaper correspondent.
And in 1943, Gamzatov’s first collection of poems, dedicated to the war, was published as a separate book. Soon the author is accepted as a member of the Writers' Union.
In 1945, Gamzatov came to Moscow to enter the Literary Institute. A serious obstacle was poor knowledge of the Russian language, Gamzatov admitted a large number of mistakes in dictation entrance exams. However, the director got acquainted with the poems of the young applicant and nevertheless added Gamzatov to the list of applicants. The young poet and writer discovered the magical world of previously unknown authors. In principle, he was familiar with Russian literature since childhood. He admired Tolstoy, Pushkin, and Krylov’s fables.
In 1950, Gamzatov graduated from the Literary Institute and forever retained in his soul gratitude and love for his years of study. He admitted that Russian literature and his studies at the institute made him a real writer.
While still studying, Gamzatov published the first collection of poems of his works in Russian. Since that time, a huge number of Gamzatov’s works have been published in poetry, prose, and in the journalistic genre in many languages of the world (“Take care of your friends,” “The Last Price,” “My Dagestan,” etc.). The book "My Dagestan" is a real encyclopedia of the Avar people. The truthfulness and sincerity with which it is written allows the reader to fully experience the life of a small people, to feel all their worries and joys, sorrows and successes. Gamzatov translated to native language masterpieces of Russian classics: Pushkin, Lermontov, Yesenin, etc. He was awarded a large number of USSR prizes.
Many of Gamzatov's poems were set to music and became songs released on records in the Soviet Union.
The main motives and direction of Gamzatov’s creativity
Gamzatov’s work is characterized by enormous humanism, love of life and rejection of everything base. All of Gamzatov’s lyrics are saturated love theme. This is love for a woman, and maternal love, and in general this feeling is extolled by the writer and poet in first place. Gamzatov’s best poems are distinguished by boundless wisdom, nobility, spiritual beauty. Has enormous value for Gamzatov human life, hence his admiration for human feats. A person must not just live his life like that, but must leave something behind for his descendants.
For Gamzatov, the past, present and future do not exist separately. All historical process for him, it merges together and represents a unique cultural image.
Under Soviet censorship, Gamzatov managed to convey his innermost thoughts to the reader. He always said what he considered fair and correct. Attempts to make him a convinced communist were unsuccessful. His ironic attitude towards pointless party meetings is known.
It's hard to imagine now, but Soviet era People gathered for performances by famous poets as if they were attending modern concerts. Gamzatov was no exception. Huge audiences were a real popular recognition of his work.
Thanks to his activities, Dagestan literature has earned recognition throughout the world, enriched with new genres while preserving its original cultural identity.
Rasul Gamzatovich Gamzatov died in 2003 in Moscow. His literary activity and the legacy he left behind became truly an entire era in Dagestan, Russian and world literature.
Rasul Gamzatovich Gamzatov was born on September 8, 1923 in the village of Tsada, Khunzakh region of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in the family of the people's poet of Dagestan, laureate of the USSR State Prize, Gamzat Tsadasa. Studied at Araninskaya high school and at the Avar Pedagogical College, after graduating from which he worked as a teacher, assistant director of the Avar State Theater, head of department and own correspondent of the Avar newspaper “Bolshevik Gor”, editor of Avar broadcasts of the Dagestan Radio Committee. In 1945-1950 Rasul Gamzatov studied at the Moscow Literary Institute named after M. Gorky. After his graduation, Rasul Gamzatov in 1951 was elected Chairman of the Board of the Writers' Union of Dagestan, where he worked until his death in November 2003.
Rasul Gamzatov began writing poetry when he was nine years old. Then his poems began to be published in the republican Avar newspaper “Bolshevik Gor.” The first book of poems in the Avar language was published in 1943. He was only twenty years old when he became a member of the USSR Writers' Union. Since then, dozens of poetic, prose and journalistic books have been published in the Avar and Russian languages, in many languages of Dagestan, the Caucasus and the whole world, such as “My Heart is in the Mountains”, “High Stars”, “Take Care of Friends”, “Cranes”, “At the Hearth”, “Letters”, “The Last Price”, “Tales”, “The Wheel of Life”, “About the Stormy Days of the Caucasus”, “In midday heat", "My Dagestan", "Two Shawls", "Judge me by the code of love", "Sonnets" and many others, which gained wide popularity among lovers of his poetry.
The poems and poems of Rasul Gamzatov were translated into Russian by such masters of the pen as Ilya Selvinsky and Sergei Gorodetsky, Semyon Lipkin and Yulia Neiman. His poet friends worked especially fruitfully with him: Naum Grebnev, Yakov Kozlovsky, Yakov Helemsky, Vladimir Soloukhin, Elena Nikolaevskaya, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrei Voznesensky, Yunna Morits, Marina Akhmedova and others. Rasul Gamzatov himself translated into Avar the poems and poems of Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Shevchenko, Blok, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, poems by poets of the Pushkin galaxy, the Arab poet Abdul Aziz Khoja and many others.
Many of Rasul Gamzatov’s poems became songs. They attracted the attention of many composers from Dagestan, the Caucasus, Russia and other republics. The Melodiya publishing house has repeatedly released records and CDs with songs based on the poet’s poems. Well-known composers in the country worked closely with Gamzatov: Ian Frenkel, Oscar Feltsman, Polad Bul-Bul-ogly, Raymond Pauls, Yuri Antonov, Alexandra Pakhmutova, Gottfried Hasanov, Sergei Agababov, Murad Kazhlaev, Shirvani Chalaev and many others.
The performers of these songs were famous singers and artists: Anna German, Galina Vishnevskaya, Muslim Magomaev, Mark Bernes, Joseph Kobzon, Valery Leontiev, Sergei Zakharov, Sofia Rotaru, Rashid Beibutov, Vakhtang Kikabidze, Dmitry Gnatyuk, Mui Gasanova, Magomed Omarov and others. Poems were recited by such famous artists as Mikhail Ulyanov, Alexander Zavadsky, Yakov Smolensky, Alexander Lazarev and others.
For outstanding achievements in the field of literature, Rasul Gamzatov was awarded many titles and prizes from Dagestan, Russia, Soviet Union and the world: people's poet of Dagestan, Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin Prize, laureate of the State Prizes of the RSFSR and the USSR, laureate of the international award "Best Poet of the 20th Century", laureate of the Asian and African Writers' Prize "Lotus", laureate of the Jawaharlal Nehru, Firdousi, Christo awards Botev, as well as prizes named after Sholokhov, Lermontov, Fadeev, Batyray, Makhmud, S. Stalsky, G. Tsadasa and others.
Rasul Gamzatov was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, deputy and member of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and member of the Dagestan regional committee of the CPSU. For several decades he was a delegate to the writers' congresses of Dagestan, the RSFSR and the USSR, a member of the Committee for the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, a member of the board of the Soviet Peace Committee, Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Committee for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia and Africa, a member of the editorial board of the magazines "New World", "Friendship of Peoples" , newspapers “Literary Gazette”, “Literary Russia” and other newspapers and magazines. Had a number state awards: four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Friendship of Peoples, the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd degree, the Order of Peter the Great, the Bulgarian Order of Cyril and Methodius, many medals of the USSR and Russia. On September 8, 2003, on the day of the poet’s 80th birthday, for special services to the fatherland, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded him highest award country - the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called Apostle.
Rasul Gamzatov's poetry evenings were successfully held over the years in Makhachkala and Moscow theaters and concert halls, as well as in the cultural centers of Sofia, Warsaw, Berlin, Budapest and many other halls.
Based on the works of the poet, the ballet “Mountain Woman” was staged at the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater, and at the St. Petersburg Theater Bolshoi Theater comedy, the play “My Dagestan” was staged on the stage of the Avar Musical Drama Theater named after. G. Tsadasy staged the plays “My Heart is in the Mountains”, “Take Care of Mothers”, “Mountain Woman”, etc. The play “Mountain Woman” was staged on the stages of many theaters of the former USSR.
Books have been written and published about the life and work of the national poet by famous literary scholars: K. Sultanov, V. Ognev, V. Dementyev, etc. Documentary and television films have been made about him, such as “My Heart is in the Mountains”, “A Caucasian from Tsad” , “White Cranes”, “Rasul Gamzatov and Georgia”, etc. The feature films “Mountain Woman” and “The Tale of the Brave Khochbar” were made based on his works.
Rasul Gamzatov has been to many countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. He visited many famous statesmen, from kings and presidents, writers and artists. His house in the village of Tsada and Makhachkala was visited by many guests of world significance.
His family: his wife Patimat, who died in 2000, three daughters and four granddaughters. His father died in 1951, and his mother in 1965. Two older brothers died in the battles of the Great Patriotic War. His younger brother Gadzhi Gamzatov, an academician, lives in Makhachkala Russian Academy Sci.
On November 3, 2003, the poet’s heart stopped; he was buried in Makhachkala in a cemetery at the foot of Mount Tarki-Tau, next to the grave of his wife Patimat.
Date of Birth: |
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Place of Birth: |
Tsada village, Khunzakh district, Dagestan, RSFSR, USSR |
Date of death: |
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A place of death: |
Moscow Russian Federation |
Citizenship: |
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Occupation: |
Poet, writer, publicist |
Years of creativity: |
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Direction: |
Socialist realism |
Poem, poem |
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Language of works: |
Avar |
1943 book in Avar language |
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Awards:: |
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Aphorisms and stories
Works and publications
Articles about Rasul Gamzatov
Perpetuation of memory
(accident Rasul XIamzatov; September 8, 1923 - November 3, 2003) - famous Avar poet, writer, publicist, political figure. People's poet Dagestan ASSR (1959). Hero Socialist Labor(1974). Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1963) and the Stalin Prize of the third degree (1952). Member of the CPSU(b) since 1944.
Biography
Rasul Gamzatov was born on September 8, 1923 in the village of Tsada, Khunzakh region of Dagestan, into the family of Gamzat Tsadasa (1877-1951), the people's poet of Dagestan. He studied at the Araninskaya secondary school. He graduated from the Avar Pedagogical College in 1939. Until 1941 he worked school teacher, then - an assistant director in the theater, a journalist in newspapers and on the radio. From 1945 to 1950 he studied at the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky in Moscow. He was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, deputy and member of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. For several decades he was a delegate to the writers' congresses of Dagestan, the RSFSR and the USSR, a member of the Bureau of Solidarity of Writers of Asian and African Countries, a member of the Committee for the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, a member of the board of the Soviet Peace Committee, Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Committee for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia and Africa.
Member of the USSR Supreme Council of the 6th-8th convocations since 1962. In 1962-1966 and since 1971 he was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Full member Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts.
He died on November 3, 2003 at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow. He was buried in an old Muslim cemetery in Makhachkala at the foot of Mount Tarki-Tau, next to his wife’s grave.
Creative activity
Rasul began writing poetry in 1932 and publishing it in 1937 in the republican Avar newspaper Bolshevik Gor. The first book in the Avar language was published in 1943. He translated classical and modern Russian literature into the Avar language, including A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov, V. V. Mayakovsky and S. A. Yesenin.
At the Literary Institute named after. A. M. Gorky Gamzatov met and became friends with young poets, including N. Grebnev, who began to translate Rasul Gamzatov’s poems into Russian. The poet-translator N. Grebnev is responsible for the translation of the particularly well-known “Cranes,” which became a song on the initiative and performed by M. N. Bernes in 1969.
A number of other poems by Rasul Gamzatov also became songs, for example, “They disappeared sunny days" Many composers worked closely with Gamzatov, including Dmitry Kabalevsky, Jan Frenkel, Raymond Pauls, Yuri Antonov, Alexandra Pakhmutova; among the performers of songs based on his poems are Anna German, Galina Vishnevskaya, Muslim Magomaev, Joseph Kobzon, Valery Leontiev, Sofia Rotaru, Vakhtang Kikabidze, Mark Bernes.
R. Gamzatov was a member of the editorial board of the magazines " New world", "Friendship of Peoples", newspapers "Literary Newspaper", "Literary Russia", other newspapers and magazines. From 1951 until the end of his life he headed the writers' organization of Dagestan.
Dozens of his poetic, prose and journalistic books have been published in the Avar and Russian languages, in many languages of Dagestan, the Caucasus and the whole world.
Family
Wife Patimat (died in 2000), three daughters and four granddaughters, including the famous Shahri Amirkhanova.
The father died in 1951, and the mother in 1965.
Two older brothers fell in the battles of the Great Patriotic War.
Younger brother Gadzhi Gamzatov is an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Awards
- Hero of Socialist Labor (September 27, 1974)
- Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (September 8, 2003) - behind outstanding contribution in development Russian literature and active social activities
- Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" III degree(April 18, 1999) — for outstanding contribution to the development of multinational culture of Russia
- Order of Friendship of Peoples (September 6, 1993) - for his great contribution to the development of multinational Russian literature and fruitful social activities
- four orders of Lenin
- Order of the October Revolution
- Three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor
- Order of Peter the Great
- Order "Cyril and Methodius" (NRB)
- USSR medals
- Lenin Prize(1963) - for the book “High Stars”
- Stalin Prize third degree (1952) - for the collection of poems and poems “The Year of My Birth”
- State Prize of the RSFSR named after M. Gorky (1980) - for the poem “Take care of mothers”
- People's poet of Dagestan
- International Prize"The best poet of the 20th century"
- Asian and African Writers Lotus Prize
- Jawaharlal Nehru Award
- Ferdowsi Prize
- Hristo Botev Prize
- International Prize named after M. A. Sholokhov in the field of literature and art
- Lermontov Prize
- Fadeev Prize
- Batyray Prize
- Mahmoud Prize
- S. Stalsky Prize
- G. Tsadasa Prize and others
Aphorisms and stories
There were many jokes about Rasul Gamzatov, which he loved to retell, assuring that they were true.
On his 70th birthday (in 1993), he told Dzhokhar Dudayev: “Why should a Georgian be independent from an Armenian, and a Chechen from an Avar? Independent people and there are no nations! - and he, not finding anything to answer, left unnoticed.
In the early 1990s, at the height of separatist sentiments in Dagestan, Gamzatov, with his characteristic aphorism, snapped: “Dagestan never voluntarily entered Russia and will never voluntarily leave Russia.”
At the height of the anti-alcohol campaign and the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages, at the congress of the Writers' Union he said: “Well, well. We will bring it with us.”
Works and publications
Articles about Rasul Gamzatov
- V. F. Ognev Rasul Gamzatov, Moscow, 1964
- Kazbek Sultanov “I’m suffering again, I’m writing again...” About some creative lessons R. Gamzatova // Dagestan. 2003. No. 4-5
- Shapi Kaziev “I just wrote poems about love” Preface to the book by R. Gamzatov “Judge me by the code of love” M.: Molodaya gvardiya, 2004
Ratings
He was always loved by both the people and the authorities.
In addition to prizes and awards, the authorities rewarded him with trips abroad. Books were published in millions of copies in dozens of languages around the world. Brezhnev could not listen to “Cranes” without tears.
However, unlike many nomenklatura poets, Gamzatov was loved and respected not only by the authorities. IN last years life he remained almost the only person, whose authority in the Caucasus was indisputable.
Perpetuation of memory
By decree State Council Republic of Dagestan, the name of Gamzatov was assigned to Buinaksky pedagogical college and the Dagestan Republican Library. A prize and scholarship named after Rasul Gamzatov was also established for the creation of the most talented works in the field of poetry.
In the capital of Dagestan, the city of Makhachkala, the central Lenin Avenue after the death of Gamzatov was renamed R. Gamzatov Avenue.
In Dagestan, every year in September they hold memorable days"White Cranes"